Personal Hygiene

Firetrap

It strikes me that your wife is very lucky that nobody has said anything to her to date. If you think that telling her yourself will hurt, imagine how crushed she'd feel if her boss did? Clearly, her perception of clean doesn't match most other people's. I find it hard to believe that someone who's only washing once a week and changes their clothes every 3-4 days doesn't smell to a certain extent. And what about her hair?? It's well known that after a while, your nose will stop smelling things which are around all the time. So while she might not think she's smelling and perhaps you can't smell it either, it's there to some extent.

metrovelvet

Think of it this way. If you walked out of the house with a trail of toilet paper hanging out of your pants wouldnt you be a little upset if there were someone there who let you go out like that and didnt tell you?

Neyite

OP,
Washing once a week, and changing her clothes a maximum of twice a week is bad hygeine. Please tell me her underwear is changed daily?

I rarely break a sweat. I've been in 37degree heat abroad and been bone dry underarm, without antiprespirant, but even so, 'down there' is another matter. Its enclosed by underwear most of the time, and in addition to urine, there are also other fluids happening in that area.

If you also think that most people pee say, a minimum of 8- 10 times a day, thats 80- 100 times a week she has 'blotted' urine onto her pubic hair with dry toilet paper per week, without washing with water. No wonder you smell it. :eek:

You need to tell her. You say you are afraid of insulting her, but yet you let her insult you - sex is a shared experience and its respect for your partner to be clean and hygeinic for them. Be matter of fact. State that you smell it, its a turn-off and affecting your sex life.

Wonkagirl

fedupwiththis wrote: »

Quote
. She doesn't change her clothes every day either, maybe every 3-4 days.

-- but one thing that drives me scatty is she fibs, and will swear blind on anyones grave.

TBH the above statements lead me to think this is a windup now.

A homeless person changes their clothes more often than that? Are you saying she wears the same pair of kacks for 4 days? That's the most disgusting thing i've ever heard, i couldnt imagine being in the same room as someone like that, not to mind say sleeping with them. Vile vile VILE.

Youre as bad for not taking her up on this OP, i'[m sorry if that sounds harsh but it's true. You are failing her, she is failing you- what kind of a basis is that for a relationship.?

She sounds incredibly controlling- she calls the tunes. No kids, no showers- lying and swearing on peoples graves? youre some eejit, sorry.

LegacyUser

Hi Op,

I'm just posting to give you another point of you from my own background, maybe it will be helpful maybe it won't but some of this thread is familiar to me. I unfortunately grew up in a filthy house, as a child i had to clean a plate in order to have one to eat off, most of the time thatinvolved searching around the house for ones that could still have food on them. My mother washed clothes about once a month and i used my pocket money at primark to buy undies and washed my own undies and socks in my room under my bed so she wouldn't know. Bathing was very unpleasant. Normally my mother would have only offered to put us in the bath once every two weeks, the shower was in her en suite and was disgusting and the bath was usually full of things, clothes, rubbish bags, delf, food, anything! You would have found it hard to know if a room had carpet or wood on the floor as every inch was covered. I moved out the first second i could and established much stricter cleaning and hygeine patterns. Thank God! I'm sure at some stages of my life people thought i smelled because i did, but as a child i couldn't control it, as an adult i could. I started lying very early on too, as i was so embarrassed by my home and family. We were decently well off but my mother just isn't capable of looking after herself never mind a home or family. I had to lie to friends all the time when they wanted to come over about why they couldn't, lie to teachers about not having correct uniform or it being dirty, lieing to people coming to the front door etc. The humiliation of having someone see what i was living in nearly drove me to self harming thoughts.

Anyhow thats just a tiny bit of background. I'm wondering has your wife ever lived by herself and if so how did that go? I changed my behaviour as soon as i was old enough to do so but its worrying that your wife can't and she clearly has no interest in her appearance. The thing is, evryone knows they should shower every day or every second day. If i went a day without showering i'd feel really ashamed. She knows she should be showering but because nothing has been said to her she thinks nobody has noticed and she can get away with it. whether its childhood trauma or laziness there is not way that changing clothes twice a week and showering once is normal to anyone. You need to have a chat no matter how childish her reaction will be. If you let her continue on like this you will be failing her as a husband.

Good luck

Ann22

Op how about if next time you're in bed having a cuddle, you just stop dead and ask her if she can smell anything... She'll likely say "no - what kind of a smell?" You reply..."It's a sort of pissy smell..Jeez I hope it's not me". Then when she says she can't smell anything or whatever, you reply "nope there's definitely a bad smell...but I only showered this morning. When did you last shower?" Then if she says "um...last week" - unless she fibs and says she showered the night before there should be a brief silence where it dawns on her.

neuro-praxis

Hi OP. I feel for you and really applaud you for how loving, loyal and considerate you are to your wife.

I have a friend who I spoke to recently about a similar issue. She brought it up. She has problems with personal hygiene. We have been friends all our lives and at times especially when we were teenagers, she has smelled. But then, the smell would go away for a while and so I wouldn't bring it up. The longer you have known someone, the deeper your relationship with them, the harder it is to talk about these kinds of issues.

Anyway, we were having dinner recently and she brought it up. It is a huge mental struggle for her to keep herself clean and neat. The home she was raised in was disgusting and her mother was mentally ill and erratic. Bath times were a constant dreadful source of anxiety and stress. Her mother rarely washed their clothes and never ironed them. It was very difficult for her and her siblings.

Now that she lives alone, she showers regularly and things are fine. However when she is struggling or feeling lonely or depressed, she finds it very difficult to motivate herself to take showers and to take care of herself. She is aware that this problem exists but doesn't exactly know what to do about it. It is definitely linked to not caring about herself enough to spend time in the rituals of self-care. During these tough times, her surroundings also go to sh1t. Her home becomes a bomb site and none of her clothes get washed. She definitely feels ashamed of her home during these times.

I should add that this woman is extremely successful, talented, pretty and popular. She is 31.

Maybe your wife has similar issues.

Continue to be loving and supportive, but as has been reiterated her over and over, you must talk openly about these topics, no matter how difficult. You have committed yourself for life to this person and you want to be able to enjoy each other as much as possible, and good personal hygiene enables that. Good luck,

Xcellor

Jesus christ.. rank.

Can't understand people who say they don't shower daily... Regardless of your level of activity, you sweat, you sh1t, you urinate all of which create bacteria. Just because you don't notice the smell doesn't mean others dont.

OP. You need to be straight with your wife. Keeping quiet will only damage the relationship.

flowerchild

I have two questions. What prevents you talking with her about it? No hinting and dancing around, just supportive straight talk. Until you get to the heart of that question, nothing is going to change. And what prevents her from showering? That is the heart of the issue for her too.

In a good relationship you can say and hear anything. It doesn't mean that you don't get angry or embarrassed or hurt or any number of emotions. It just means that you talk it through anyway.

up for anything

fedupwiththis wrote: »

Hi OP here again,
She doesn't wear make up, which is her choice, and I understand that, she doesn't even wear face cream, or lip balm. Only when I say it to her does she wear lip balm, as i said I'm totally fed up telling her, and suggesting etc.
Its not that I mind her not wearing makeup, its the fact she does not look after herself very well. She has nice clothes but rarely wears them. She only wore a dress at our wedding, and she has a fantastic figure. Thanks for all your advice, I'm beginning to see this is a bigger picture.

Cheeky_gal wrote: »

Can't believe some of the responses in this thread.

Who showers once a week? That's both shocking and digusting. :eek:

And whoever said "it depends on activity level", that's BS. Everyone is active to some extent during the day, getting dressed/brushing teeth/walking to the shops.

It's the norm to shower daily. Oh my god OP I can't believe you're with a woman that showers once a week. I'm sick at the thought!

fedupwiththis wrote: »

Hi OP here,

Thank you all so much for your help. 'Cheap Thrills!' That was good advice.

'''Did you perhaps think that now you are married that she might change her mind?
Hope it all works out well OP.

Thanks vvvvvvvvvv I would never discuss this to anyone, but after ten years of gently nudging, and encouraging, and complimenting I am at the end of my tether.

'''You sound like you're incredibly patient.
I can't believe that this issue hasn't raised itself in the time you've been together. Has she started to let herself go more since you got married?

It has as I said constantly nudging etc etc ad infinitum, I thought she was changing and she has improved, but I just noticed this again recently, and that's why I am angry, and resorted to posting here in desperation.

Patient? I never thought about this, but now you say it, yes and as I said I am so completely fed up to my eye teeth with the whole thing. Its like playing tennis going forward then back then forward again.

'''I find it hard to believe that other people who are around the OP's wife haven't also noticed the smell.'''
Yes but there are people with really bad smell, and some with a minor problem. I could only notice this when we are intimate. So its not that I live with a person who never washes, its not as bad as that at all. I have said to her things like ah a nice clean wife, but she gets offended, and says 'i am clean'. But perhaps other women do notice. She doesn't change her clothes every day either, maybe every 3-4 days.

Someone mentioned counciling but that's a joke, and would be a complete waste of time. She only trusts her father, and myself. Even though she is 34, she is still 'Daddys Girl' which isn't a bad thing. Getting off the point here a little, but one thing that drives me scatty is she fibs, and will swear blind on anyones grave. So this does not help with the personal hygiene thing at all, as she is quite prepared to lie, and unless she is completely caught red handed, she will deny everything, even if she knows I know. but on the other hand she is very kind, and unique, and unaffected by life, and has some rare feminine qualities- she is a darling, and thats why I'm so exasperated. But this has really put me off being intimate, and maybe for a long time, as all I think about is the hygiene thing when we are together. I hope I forget about it soon.

I'm sorry, or maybe not so sorry, if it comes across as harsh but to me, at any rate, you don't sound like a loyal, loving, caring person. I'm finding you a bit nauseating, controlling, paternalistic and self back-patting at the majority of the answers you are receiving here. In ten years you haven't managed to mould her into the type of woman you think she should be so my advice would be to give up. She sounds like a strong woman not to have been trained up by you and it could be, as I said before, that for her she is using this issue as a way of passively attacking you and what you represent.

You seem to have fallen into marriage with someone you have been with for ten years with tackling all the issues that upset you and the same with her. There is much more to this than meets the eye or that you are telling us.

The bit about rare feminine qualities make me puke into my hijab a bit. :rolleyes: Either man up and tell her how you feel or go along as you have been for ten years.

Emme wrote: »

I think it's amazing in this day and age, when so many scrupulously clean, immaculately groomed women can't find partners despite their best efforts, that a woman who wilfully neglects herself can find a partner.

This produced a coffee and monitor situation! :D I can't believe you wrote that in all seriousness. Sounds along the line of the advice that my aunt gave my sister back in '77 - "you need to make the most of yourself if you don't want to lose him". :rolleyes:

As for all the rest of you who think that people will smell if they don't shower/bath more than once a week - where were you back in the days of Saturday night showers for mass on Sunday or when very few people had more than a couple of changes of clothes and their Sunday best? It was the norm 30 years ago. There was topping and tailing and keeping your clothes clean.

In boarding school there was the weekly bath and hair wash - not always on the same day and you had a personal wash down at the sink in your alcove every evening. You wore your uniform all week with a couple of changes of blouses and an everyday change of socks and underwear and then you had your Sunday uniform and it was the same for the day girls except they got to wear their own clothes at the weekends. We didn't stink to high heavens (and I know that because there were a few girls who did).

The OP hasn't mentioned whether his wife washes herself down every day. It sounds to me like the problem is specific to her vaginal area and that makes me think of one of the STIs that come with a government smell warning. I can't think of the names off the top of my head but sure that's what google is for.

For my money, OP, you should clear the air with her in more ways than one.

tinkerbell

Errr what was the norm 30 years ago is irrelevant. This is the 21st century, there is no excuse for an adult only showering once a week. It's disgusting and totally unhygenic.

up for anything

tinkerbell wrote: »

Errr what was the norm 30 years ago is irrelevant. This is the 21st century, there is no excuse for an adult only showering once a week. It's disgusting and totally unhygenic.

How is it irrelevant? Showering once a week has nothing to do with smelling and being unhygenic! I'm just saying that if that was the case than Ireland of old would have been an unbearable place. If fuel prices rocket here over the next few months coupled with water charges you may just change your tune. I'm not saying that it is best practice but it can be adequate, along with topping and tailing, and so much better for the skin than constantly stripping it of it's natural oils and then having to replace them with lotions and potions.

By the way, 30 years ago might seem like pre-history to you but to some of us it was only yesterday.